All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Theresa May has been condemned for her failure to stick up for the NHS during her conversation with Donald Trump last night. The criticism comes after Trump tweeted to say Britain’s National Health Service was ‘going broke and not working’. But while we can be rightly proud of the NHS, we shouldn’t be blind to
PMQs proved a more lively affair than usual thanks to the Beast of Bolsover. Dennis Skinner attempted to ask a question on NHS funding but John Bercow managed to distract from the message by congratulating the veteran Labour MP on his upcoming birthday. The MP for Bolsover will turn 86 on Sunday – not that he’ll
Far too often in politics, women on the centre-right find themselves labeled as the ‘wrong’ sort of feminist, or even worse, told their political views aren’t compatible with the main principles of feminism. It is a general attitude which not only affects everyday women but has followed the most successful women in politics, all the
Will 2018 be the year that you finally get round to buying a new house, or even become a homeowner for the first time? If so, this week’s Best Buys – of two year fixed-rate mortgages – is worth having a look at.
What will the consequences be for the latest chemical weapons attack in Syria? Currently everyone is accusing everyone else, but doing very little. The United States says Russia is covering for President Assad. Turkey is accusing the United States of ‘calculations against’ Turkey, Iran and maybe Russia too. So a war of words, but no
Justin Trudeau is no stranger to virtue signalling, but he has surpassed himself with his latest gesture. The Canadian PM was taking part in a Q and A at a university when he took a female* audience member to task. Her offence? Succumbing to the patriarchy and referring to ‘mankind’. Trudeau interrupted her to mansplain
Today’s centenary of some women being given the right to vote seems to have bewildered a number of people. My colleague Ross Clark, in particular, was perturbed by the Today programme turning into Woman’s Hour to mark the centenary, which he felt was inappropriate for a news programme, and also didn’t cover the fact that
On this, the centenary of some women getting the right to vote, there has been a lot of talk of pardoning the suffragettes. Jeremy Corbyn and Ruth Davidson have both said they back the idea, and the Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said she’ll look into it. But pardoning the suffragettes would be wrong. For many of them deliberately
When David Cameron and George Osborne were in government, the pair heralded a new ‘golden era’ where the UK would be China’s ‘best partner in the West’. However, since Theresa May moved into No 10, questions have been raised about the health of this partnership. Osborne ally Lord O’Neill has criticised May for a focus on New
Anniversaries are very interesting, of course, but all the same I think a news programme ought to revolve around, well, the day’s news. That is something which increasingly seems to be missing from the Today Programme, once the BBC’s flagship news programme. Overnight, as I have read elsewhere, stock markets have plummeted around the world.
Donald Trump has found himself in the midst of another international spat, fuelled this time by his attack on the UK’s national religion. In an attempt to verbally jab the opposition in his own country, the President has managed to rile up many thousands, if not millions, of people who have deep reverence for Britain’s National
Exactly 100 years after (some) women won the right to vote, Ruth Davidson has joined calls for a posthumous pardon for jailed suffragettes – the militants who violently fought for that right. ‘Voting was a value judgement, not an intrinsic right,’ says Davidson. And that historic inequality is why she supports the pardon, no questions
The Dow drops by eleven hundred points, its largest one-day fall ever. Equities around the world crash in sympathy. The bond markets are rattled, picture editors start looking for their stock photos of traders gazing despairingly at their Bloomberg terminals, and anxious-looking analysts turn up on TV warning that a recession might be just around
Say what you like about Nicola Sturgeon but she’s consistent. Every autumn, when she sets out her programme for government, the First Minister makes the same pledge: ‘We will make it a priority to improve the educational outcomes of pupils in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland… a targeted approach to attainment that will help
The friction in the Tory party shows no signs of calming down. Anna Soubry is the latest Tory MP to cause trouble – again – by calling for Conservative hard Brexiteers to be ‘slung’ out of the party. Soubry said it was time for ‘moderates’ to ‘take control’. She told Newsnight: ‘My frontbench…is in hock
Today’s centenary of the Representation of the People Act is in danger of becoming a rose-tinted celebration of votes for women. But it’s worth us remembering this historic legislation with more clarity, so that the anniversary does not get used as an excuse for curtailing democracy once more. For a start, the Act only extended
Today is the centennial of that happy day when British women finally won the vote. Women over the age of 30, that is, who owned property – only ten years later would we be granted the vote on the same terms as men. A century on, and the most common current phrase used about feminism
There was a time not so long ago when the political establishment of the Republican Party – the Mitt Romneys, Paul Ryans, and Lindsey Grahams of the world – were strong Donald Trump antagonists. Trump would utter a racially charged remark about a Mexican-American district court judge being biased against him because he was Mexican,
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, was worth an estimated £40 billion. Yet the eighth richest man in the world drove an old Volvo, flew economy class, bought his clothes in flea markets and had his wife cut his hair to avoid the cost of a barber. Some other wealthy tight-fists: — The oil entrepreneur
Here we go. There’s been a lot of talk in recent months of the vicious rhetoric coming from Brexiteers – but what about ardent Remainers? Zac Goldsmith – the MP for Richmond Park – has taken to social media to share a letter that was sent to an 80-year-old constituent. Signed by ‘the real 48
Theresa May’s MPs are now constantly pressuring her to come up with a ‘vision’ of what she wants to do, whether it be on Brexit or on the domestic front. Those who are more sympathetic to the Prime Minister’s caution, though, argue that her vision is constrained by the parliamentary arithmetic. Why try something that
If you are lucky enough to get a ticket for Julius Caesar at London’s Bridge theatre, prepare to join the mob. Actors turn into stewards and herd most of the audience around the stage as if they are crowds at a political rally. A live band blasts out rock songs and urges us to chant
If you have been browsing The Spectator’s website as a visitor, we have the perfect opportunity to subscribe. Perfect, that is, you’re a fan of Steven Pinker – and if you’re not, you should be. He’s one of the most original, agenda-setting writers of our time. From the use of language to the use of
Treasury civil servants have been getting indignant about the suggestion by Jacob Rees-Mogg that their reports have been biased in favour of EU membership. But are they protesting too much? As it happens we have a recent example of what a genuinely independent study by the Treasury looks like. Between 1999 and 2003, HM Treasury
The protest that greeted Jacob Rees-Mogg’s talk at a Bristol university on Friday night shows that something sinister is happening in British politics, according to today’s newspaper editorials. The Times says that while Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘younger admirers’ might be blind to the idea, the Labour party and Corbyn’s ‘personal brand are tainted with an ugly
After a weekend of Tory in-fighting, blue on blue briefing wars and confusion over the government’s Brexit position, it’s safe to say that tensions are running high in the Conservative party. One minister who is particularly rattled by the contents of the Sunday papers is Ben Wallace, The Mail on Sunday reported that the Security
It’s crunch week for Theresa May. The Prime Minister is under pressure to finally decide what the government’s negotiating position ought to be going into the second round of EU negotiations. In order to work out what the UK’s trade relationship with the EU should be after Brexit, May will meet with her Brexit war
They range in age from toddlers to teenagers and all will inevitably have been traumatised by what they have experienced. On the face of it, then, who wouldn’t want to show kindness to the children who, through no fault of their own, have grown up and been born in the Islamic State? But as Commander
After Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the Tories have been divided on how best to utilise their celebrity supporter. A proud Conservative, Toff’s offer to share her million Instagram followers with the party was snubbed by CCHQ over concerns she was ‘too posh to win over Labour supporters’.
Amber Rudd: ‘I have complete confidence’ in the civil service The Home Secretary has defended the civil service after recent comments made by members of her party. Brexit minister Steve Baker and backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg – now the chair of the influential European Research Group – have both criticised the institution. Baker apologised to the
Oh dear. After a week in which senior Brexiteers accused the civil service of trying to frustrate Britain’s exit from the EU, the Sunday papers have seen the first signs of fight back. In the Observer, Andrew Turnbull, who led the civil service under Tony Blair, claims the Brexit bunch are using tactics similar to those
The future of modern Britain looks set to be an unusually complicated affair. Take just one piece of news that came out of the trial of Darren Osborne over recent days. According to relatives of the Finsbury Park attacker, the first trigger towards his radicalisation was watching the BBC drama Three Girls about the Rochdale
The latest competition was a nod to Donald Trump’s first year in office, and what better as a springboard than the US President’s own words. Taking inspiration from @huntthesnark on Twitter, I invited you to compose a presidential patter song, taking as your first line ‘I am the very model of a Very Stable Genius’.
So we have to make do with a little touch of Gavin in the night. The new Defence Secretary has an unusual but rather successful technique. A likeable version of Uriah Heep (if that is imaginable), Mr Williamson is ever so ’umble about his intellectual attainments and deferential to those of others, yet ruthless in